Whacky Lingerie Is In

Gone are the days when your bra and panties were of the simple, effective t-shirt variety. As lingerie evolves, new, innovative, and sometimes not-super-useful silhouettes have emerged into the trend cycle, pointing to an evolution in the way we interpret undergarments.

Belgian designer Julie Kegels has been at the forefront of this evolution, with her recent win of the LVMH prize as confirmation. Last year, for her Spring/Summer 2026 collection, she debuted her 'boobstickers'—collages of antique lace leftovers, 3D-scanned and 3D-printed on boob tape to look like a wireless, strapless lace bra. For those not yet ready to free the nipple, Kegels offered the perfect solution for the fashion girl still wanting to experiment with sheer silhouettes.

For her Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Kegels continued her exploration of the genius fashion accessory, this time with nude boobstickers embellished with spiral sequin motifs. She is one of many designers currently experimenting with new ways to interpret lingerie codes of late, many of whom are taking ideas of what lingerie should be and how it should function and subverting these ideas to offer hybridized, sexy versions of our everyday undergarments.

Take, for example, Evelina—the Ukrainian fashion graduate who recently went viral for her interpretation of the naked shoe, the idea of which is entirely based on a lace sockette, or a pair of heels she designed that are built into sheer tights so that it is one item.

The same fascination with tights-like material is offered at Du Ciel, the Germany-based lingerie and swimwear brand making undergarments almost solely for design purposes, like their Désir bra, a rimless, mesh bra with a middle seam to resemble the middle seam of sheer stockings, creating a further sense of allure in seeing something that perhaps we didn't expect.

On the runway, brands like KNWLS offered camisoles with reversed bra fastenings around the necklines for Spring/Summer 2027, while Prada opted for scanty, bra-like tops with metal clips for handy coin purses to swing off. At Glenn Martens' Margiela Spring/Summer 2027 show, it was about skin-tight flesh-toned tank tops with nipple impressions to give the illusion of bare skin, layered with open shirts as though chests were exposed.

Lingerie, and lingerie-adjacent codes have been a mainstay in the trend cycle, especially within the past five years. But what makes these silhouettes different to what we've seen plenty of times before is the reinvention of typically functional silhouettes: stockings, bras, boob tape, reworked and offered in fashion-forward ways that leave functionality behind for something more alluring in their wake.